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Script of Spoken-Word Presentation: (NOTE: I heavily Digressed from it in the Video!!)

[RCC 2013, begin music at 30 sec.]

Class has begun!!

Write, study, and take your exams.

But to what end?

A future career as a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, or so forth?

[Pause]

And what about Creativity?

A skill that is necessary.

Do you think that just because you are on your way to becoming a doctor, a researcher, a physicist, a chemist, or such, that you can leave out such a necessity!!!

Well, you cannot.

Creativity is not just for theatre, the arts or music or dance.

It is the driver of innovation, of development and how we’ll advance.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

We need creativity

In all these industries.

I hope you all see.

It’s a necessity.

[Long Pause, and dance, stop music]

[Chino Hills 2014, start at 16 sec.]

There are many professionals, researchers, and scientists who all believe that there is a desperate need for creative thinkers in the STEM fields.

In school we learn that there is only a single way or limited ways to solve problems, especially in STEM classes, like math and physics and chemistry.

Our creativity is literally educated out of us.

We learn that 2+2=4 but we usually forget that it’s the same as 2 x 2, or 1+1+1+1.

A creative thinker knows many ways to solve a problem and that there is not just one-way.

Allow me to show you some ways.

[Pause, stop music.]

[Sherwood 2016]

My name is Friedrich August Kekule. I am an organic chemist.

And I used Creativity in my research on Chemical Structures.

My greatest discovery was the structure of this organic compound.

[Draw Benzene] [C6H6]

You may have heard of it, it’s called Benzene. One of the most crucial compounds in organic chemistry. For year, we chemist could not figure out its shape, myself included.

One day I had a dream.

Dance. They were dancing, these atoms.

They formed a line and danced around becoming a snake.

The snake ate its own tail.

I awoke and wrote what I saw.

I saw the cyclical structure of this long unknown compound, Benzene.

[Pause]

My name is Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist.

My greatest studies were of light and relativity and energy of our universe.

I once said to “make things simple, but no simpler”.

My skill in Creativity allowed me to show simply that all objects with mass has inherent energy.

And it can be showed using light.

It is this formula, E=mc2.

We see that creativity is crucial to some of humanity’s greatest advancements in the sciences.

So it’s no wonder that many STEM field workers are worried about our lack of creativity in these fields.

They fear that we will become stunt as a society to advancement and innovation.

Creativity is again not just in music and entertainment.

Look at music in its many forms.

It can be shown with Math.

[Draw music bar (a scale probably)] [Picture should be drawn before presentation]

Our time signature is 4/4 for beats a measure and we define a quarter note as one beat with math these are only fractions and this bar adds to 4 beats a measure.

It takes Creativity to see these relationships. Because many see math and music as almost completely different.

[Pause music, start OCI 2016at 6:54 min.]

So let’s pick up the pace, increase the sound.

We as humanity need creativity all around.

Look around, what do you see?

Everything around you is the result of someone’s creativity.

The phone you have, and the computer you use.

As you can see, Creativity is not a novelty.

It is crucial for Humanity.

The world applauses for advancement.

And what is the source for these advancement in STEM or even in social change.

It is again Creativity a wonderful necessity.

[Pause music]

FIN

Sources:

Ashton, D. (2015, February 20). Creative work careers: pathways and portfolios for the creative economy. Journal of Education and Work, 28(4), 388-406. doi:10.1080/13639080.2014.997685

Kaufman, J. C. (2015). Creativity Is More Than Silly, More Than Art, More Than Good: The Diverse Career of Arthur Cropley. Creativity Research Journal, 27(3), 249-253. doi:10.1080/10400419.2015.1063879

I want you all to listen. Because there is a phenomenon that we as Speakers must be made aware of. This issue is a natural psychological defense mechanism that is called the Backfire Effect. The reason we as speakers should know this is so we can better advocate for our cause in front of a perhaps apprehensive or even hostile audience.

So what is the Backfire Effect? Allow me to explain. But first here is a random fact, did you know there was once a law in San Francisco that banned elephants from walking along Market St. unless it had a leash. How did you all feel about that fact? Did you accept it easily and outright? Did you feel skeptical? These are common responses.

Now how about this next fact. Our concept of Time, in minutes, hours, days and so forth, does not exist. It is an illusion of our own social construct. However, there is such thing a progress into the future, it just isn’t with our concept of time. How are you all feeling after that fact? Confused? Mind-blown? Or perhaps Apprehensive of such an idea or fact. Now here is a fact from the site called The Oatmeal, in an article about the Backfire Effect there was a fact that George Washington had a pair of teeth made of the teeth of slaves. That is a fact. So how do you feel after hearing this fact? Do you want to immediately see if what I said is true or false? Are you feeling apprehensive or even hostile towards me?

The fact I did this highlight the phenomenon of the Backfire Effect. In essence it is psychological defense mechanism designed to protect our worldviews from attack, or change. The Backfire Effect makes it highly likely that a person will not change.

So as speakers we must be aware of this phenomenon. The best way to combat the Backfire Effect is to let the people’s reactions follow-through, then allow the person to calm down. The worst thing you can do is present more facts, figures, or in a simple term more evidence that goes against there worldview. Because this’ll make them more unlikely to change. When the person calms after their reaction upon hearing or viewing an idea, action or fact against their worldview, they are more likely to listen and then they are more likely to change. Therefore as a speaker you would have succeeded in advocacy in an audience that perhaps could have been apprehensive or hostile towards your facts or ideas.

So now we have a better idea on how to effectively advocate to a hostile or apprehensive audience. Let us utilize this knowledge to ethical and effectively advance our speaking abilities.

References

The Oatmeal. (2016). You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you. Retrieved from The Oatmeal: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

In Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong, by Juliet Macur, there is an example of rhetoric used that Wayne Booth deems as “Win-Rhetoric” and that is seen near the end of chapter 15 where Macur writes that Tygart wanted to believe in Armstrong’s comeback, he could not ignore the evidence against Armstrong that suggested strongly that he indeed had been doping in the cycling sport. This is a use of “Win-Rhetoric” because Tygart knows that he is right and that his intentions are to expose the truth. It doesn’t matter that Armstrong is a global acclaimed athlete and many people look up to him; he must investigate and uncover the truth and inform the world.